I’ve had a few months break from baking – having a little one takes a lot of your time!! No matter how many people tell you, you won’t know till it actually happens to you.

 Anywho, the little monkey is asleep and I can update my blog with the recent bakes, got a bit of a backlog to get through.

 Today’s post is about lemon cupcakes – I know its not bread, but its baking, so I figured that its worth blogging about - link here.

 I apologise for the pictures in advance, I only have my iPod to take photos with, and they are not that great.  

Here goes another pasta experiment. This time, I went with 100% durum wheat (other than a little KA that I used to flour the board and the pasta as it went through the machine). To make the dough, I combined 3 egg yolks (yolks only, trying for a very yellow noodle), the zest of 6 lemons, 1T each dill and basil, and 1.5t kosher salt in a blender, then mixed it into two cups of fresh-ground durum wheat (no sifting, 100% WW).

The dough sat for around four hours, then half was cut into fettucini. The other half is sitting in my fridge, and will be used tomorrow probably...

For the final dish, roast 2/3 cup of pine nuts and reserve. The chicken breasts had been coated in olive oil and kosher salt that morning, then stuck in the fridge in a plastic bag that I flipped every couple of hours during the day.  Rough chop 2 small onions, 8 oz mushrooms, and 5 cloves of garlic. I browned the chicken in a mix of butter and olive oil, then dumped the onion mixture on top and hit with some kosher salt. After most of the water cooked out of the veg mix, I added chicken stock to a 1/4" depth in the pan, put in a bunch of lemon slices, covered and simmered for 15-20 minutes. The pasta cooked for 4 minutes. I added a few tablespoons of half and half to the pan, combined for a minute, then added the noodles and cooked for another 90 seconds or so. Yum. The noodles weren't quite the bright yellow I was hoping for, maybe I'll add a few drops of food coloring next time :)

I baked this yesterday - but we ate it today, so I hope that counts!

Another version of Jan Hedh's Lemon bread, with less lemon and added lemon thyme

Ingredients:
100g 100% white starter
180g durum flour
180g white strong flour
50g rye
130g water
100g cider
25g EVOO
8g salt
zest of half a lemon (would use more in future)
leaves from 6-8 sprigs lemon thyme (would use more in future)

Method:
Mix starter, flours, water, cider and autolyse 30m or so.  Add EVOO, salt, lemon zest, herbs - thorough mix
Several S&F roughly 30min intervals for 3 hours (you can tell I was improvising - poor records!)
Refridgeration overnight, then warmed up for around 30m then pre-shaped then shaped to batard
(warning: not sure if it was the EVOO but it was a pain to shape - wouldn't seal the seam!)
3 hours I think to proof in banneton, then 15mins under SS bowl at 240 then around 25-30m at 200

Good bread flavour; not very big holes but quite a soft crumb with quite thick crust.  Nice taste but would add more lemon & herbs next time!

and the crumb:

cheers - and Happy World Bread Day!
(buckwheat batard on the way - sadly no beechnuts as the birds beat me to it!)

S

This is a bit of a cowboy post, a cake blog rather than a bread blog. I took a holiday, flew to Moscow for a few days, meaning I had to put my bubbly starter to sleep for a few days. I am eagerly waiting for it to wake up now, but I wouldn’t wait another day without baking something.

I decided to make a version of Lemon Pound cake from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. I got this book about a year ago and have been steadily testing out all the different recipes. The lemon cake is definitely a favourite – the cake comes out nice and light, with a great lemon flavour, and makes a nice treat for breakfast or tea time.

Full recipe and more photos on my blog here

Apologies for the photos, they are a bit blurry and out of focus, using my iPod instead of a proper camera, and there isn’t much of the cake left to justify getting a big camera out

Oops - another failure

I was trying to make Daisy's Wholemeal Lemon Sourdough (original successful recipe here)

Not sure what particularly went wrong - my assumption is that
a) I left the preferment too long
b) I used slightly unripe starter
c) I left the mixed dough too long for bulk ferment
d) the S&F method didn't work so well for wholewheat as for white
e) I didn't knead enough
f) the gods were not smiling :-)

I shaped the dough into small loaves - 20mins into proofing and oops - disintegrating dough!

There was no surface tension when shaping...

I decided to pop them in the oven anyway - 30mins at 220C

They smelled great - and tasted OK - but pretty awful rise (i.e. almost none) - it's "back to the bricks", and just when I thought I was doing well...

So - not one of my best examples!  Never mind - I'm still learning!

Sali

Rosemary Meyer Lemon with 80% hydration - thanks to Della Fattoria in Petaluma for the inspiration.  6 hour bulk ferment 12 hour proof.

Hi Friends,

I have just gotten certified as a home-based baker and have been told that I cannot sell cakes with any glazes or icings that include fruit,  fruit juice , etc....because they require refrigeration

I am looking for a tasty way to deal with an  A)  Orange Juice/ Sugar glaze for a Orange /Date and Pecan Pound Cake.    B) Also a Lime Juice and Sugar glaze for a Key Lime Pound Cake,  and a  C)  Lemon Glaze for my Blueberry Lemon Bundt cake.

Everyone here has just great ideas.  I'm all ears

Thanks,

Stephanie

How about citrus marmalade?

A few weeks ago I saw a post with a reference to a Honey Lemon Whole Wheat loaf. As I recall a couple posters had commented that this bread was high on the best breads list for them. A fellow I have high regard for (PMcCool), suggested I would like it, so I decided to give it a spin.

The original recipe is from Bernard Clayton. One of the things Clayton does in this and other recipes I have made is to use very warm water for the mix along with a short primary ferment time and then an overnight chilled proof. Since the dough starts off life warm, it does rise fully while in the refrigerator. I suspect this also helps develop a better flavor. Another component of the flavor being the grated lemon rind, I suspect is enhanced by the warm water helping release the oils of the fruit.

The crumb is about what you would expect from a 40% Whole Wheat mix. The dough and later the bread has a very unusual and surprising aroma with the Lemon. This is an aromatic bread of the highest order. Paul said he liked the way the lemon plays off the WW and I think that's a good description of what I sence. So grab a copy of Claytons book and give this a try.

Eric

I dug my starter out of the refrigerator on Thursday and started refreshing it without a clear notion of what I would use it for, although some type of rye bread sounded good.  Even though it had been 2-3 weeks since it was last used, it bounced back quickly and I had enough by Friday evening to start two different batches of bread.  After browsing through recipes, I decided on the NY Deli Rye from Reinhart's BBA and a sourdough Dark Rye from the new KA Whole Grain cookbook.